Getting to know your EXCO: Rosalie Balkin Newsletter 2/2023

Dr Rosalie Balkin has been CMI’s Secretary-General for the past seven years but has had close contact with CMI over the previous fifteen years in her role as Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), where she also served as IMO’s Assistant Secretary-General from 2011-2013.

As Secretary to IMO’s Legal Committee and Executive Secretary to IMO’s governing bodies (Council and Assembly) she had the pleasure of working with successive CMI delegations to promote the adoption of a number of international maritime law conventions and other instruments of less than treaty status, including guidelines such as on the fair treatment of seafarers.

Prior to joining IMO, she was Legal Adviser to the Commonwealth Ombudsman (Australia) (1982-1987) and Assistant Secretary in the Office of International Law (Australia) (1987-1998). During the latter period, Rosalie was Australia’s Head of Delegation to IMO’s Legal Committee and in 1993, she was elected Vice-Chair of that Committee, a position she held until “crossing the floor” in 1998 to join the IMO Secretariat.

Rosalie started her legal career in academia and has held various positions in a number of universities, including Wits University (South Africa), Melbourne and New South Wales Universities (Australia) and Cambridge University (UK). She has published extensively in Public International Law and International Maritime Law and was Academic Coordinator of “The IMLI Treatise on Global Ocean Governance”, Vol III: IMO and Global Ocean Governance, published by OUP in 2018. She is also the co-author (with Prof JLR Davis) of “The Law of Torts”, now in its sixth edition.

Among the highlights of her career was her participation in a five-member Compulsory Conciliation Commission established under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention which, against all expectations, succeeded in facilitating the Governments of Timor Leste and Australia reaching agreement on their long-disputed maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea.

In the 2018 Australia Day list, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to maritime law through roles with a range of organisations, to the improvement of global shipping transport safety and standards, and to education as an academic and author”.